Hands-on: new single-window mode makes GIMP less gimpy

The GIMP, an open source image editing program, has gained some significant …

The venerable GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is undergoing a significant transformation. The next major release, version 2.8, will introduce an improved user interface with an optional single-window mode. Although this update is still under heavy development, users can get an early look by compiling the latest source code of the development version from the GIMP's version control repository.

The GIMP is an open source software application for editing raster graphics. It is intended to serve as a free and open alternative to high-end image editing programs for a professional audience. Although the GIMP still has some limitations relative to industry-leading commercial products like Photoshop, it is becoming an increasingly viable solution for professional artists and photographers.

A general lack of usability is often highlighted as one of the GIMP's most significant weaknesses. A common grievance is that the program tends to spawn a confusing assortment of windows and floating tool panels that can be difficult to navigate and organize. In an effort to solve such problems and boost ease of use, the program's developers are rethinking its user interface. This broad effort has involved extensive analysis, expert evaluations, and community brainstorming.

All of that careful planning resulted in the production of detailed technical specifications that describe specific changes that will be made to the GIMP. Some of these changes, such as the empty window view, have already been partially implemented and are available in 2.6, the current stable version. The 2.7 series, which is the active development version, provides a glimpse at what is coming next.

One of the most radical and highly-anticipated changes that is documented in the specifications is a new single-window mode, an optional view that brings together all of the floating windows and converges them into a single cohesive user interface. To get a hands-on look at this feature, I compiled GIMP 2.7.1 and its core dependencies—GEGL and Babl—from source code, which can be obtained from the GNOME git repository.

The GIMP in single-window mode

Testing single-window mode

The single-window mode can be toggled from a checkbox in the Windows menu. When it is activated, the floating docks will snap into place on the left and right side of the windows. When they are locked into the user interface in this manner, the individual tool panels can still be moved around and snapped out. You can, for example, move the Brushes panel into the same group as the Layers panel or break it out of the user interface entirely into a floating window while everything else remains docked.

You can dock panels in parallel, placing as many as you want along the right and left sides of the window. These are separated by a draggable splitter that will allow you to horizontally resize the panels. The only panel that cannot be moved is the main tool palette, which is locked into the top-right docking position. In the following screenshot, you can see a configuration where several horizontal rows of palettes have been placed along the left edge of the window.

Several sets of panels along the left-hand side of the window

In order to eliminate the need for separate content windows, the single-window mode has a tabbed multidocument interface. A set of tabs is displayed along the top edge of the window with a thumbnail of each image that you have opened in the program. You can click an individual tab to interact with the associated image. The thumbnails in the tabs are updated in real time as you edit the images.

The image navigation strip has all of the same functionality as any conventional tabbed interface in the GNOME environment. You can roll your scrollwheel over it to quickly rotate through the items, for example. Although the navigation strip works relatively well, there are still a few obvious bugs that showed up during testing. The tab strip has no overflow behavior, so you can't scroll the tabs left or right when there are too many to fit in the interface. The ones that don't fit become inaccessible or partially obscured by the right-hand tool windows.

The image navigation tabs collide with the side tool panel

The single-window mode has a lot of advantages, including simplicity and ease of use, but it also currently has some limitations. You can't move or resize the navigation strip and individual tabs can't be reordered or snapped out into separate windows. The application has some rather eccentric behaviors in single-window mode that erode its predictability. A minor example is that the bottom-right corner of the content pane has a handle for resizing the window even though it isn't an actual window corner when single-window mode is enabled. Another example is that the close button in the window titlebar will only close the active image rather than the entire program. If you have multiple images open and you want to close the entire window, you have to select Quit from the File menu.

These features are still under active development, so the lack of seamlessness in the single-window mode is understandable at this stage. Some of the issues that I encountered will be resolved as development continues, others are concious design decisions on the part of the developers.

Professional interaction designer Peter Sikking wrote about some of the challenges and advantages of the single-window mode in a blog entry last year when development on the project began. He contends that the ability to snap tabs out into a separate windows or split the main window into multiple views to enable side-by-side editing is undesirable because such functionality would create serious inconsistencies in the program's behavior. He suggests a novel alternative that he describes as "polaroid" windows, hovering image snapshots that can be used to see parts of other images while you are working.

For a programmer's perspective on the redesign, I recommend reading the blog of Martin Nordholts, a GIMP developer. He has discussed several aspects of the new user interface, including changes to the docked panels and single-window mode.

Improvements to multiwindow mode

It's important to understand that the single-window mode is entirely optional and isn't going to replace the multi-window mode. Users will be able to choose which one best meets their needs. Alongside the effort to introduce the single-window mode the developers have continued to improve the multiwindow mode and enhance its usability.

The multiwindow mode has benefited from some of the improvements that were made for the single-window mode, such as support for horizontal docking. You can now dock multiple panels alongside each other in a floating window in the multiwindow mode.

Floating horizontal panels

GEGL and other improvements

The user interface changes aren't the only new features introduced in the 2.7 release. A number of other significant improvements have arrived, too. The text tool, which allows you to overlay text on top of images, no longer requires the user to edit the text content in a separate popup window—you can now edit the text directly on the image canvas. The developers have abstracted out some of the functionality of image saving into a separate export feature. There are also a number of improvements to the brush system. You can find a more complete overview of recent changes in the 2.7 release notes.

The Generic Graphical Library (GEGL) is an image processing framework that is being developed to serve as the new core of the GIMP. It has been an ongoing project for almost a decade, but has only now reached a level of maturity where it can be adopted in the GIMP. It was initially integrated in version 2.6 and is used for several of GIMP's feature. The GIMP's code for layer composition has been rebased on GEGL in version 2.7. Additional GEGL integration work will continue after the completion of the current user interface overhaul.

GEGL is extremely significant because it will boost GIMP's support for non-destructive editing and high bit-depth images—critical functionality that is needed in order to make the GIMP a competitive solution for professional image editing.

The schedule for GIMP 2.8

Much like GNOME, GIMP has even-numbered stable releases and odd-numbered development releases. GIMP 2.7 is a development version, which means that it's basically a snapshot of the source tree and is not intended for regular users.

GIMP 2.8 will be the first official stable release to include the new single-window mode. The GIMP developers recently announced that they are tentatively planning to release GIMP 2.8 in December 2010. This release date, which is almost a year from now, is only a loose approximation of when they think that the program will be ready. They caution that the schedule is not set in stone.

The GIMP is an impressive application that illuminates the potential of the of the open source software community to build free and open desktop applications that nearly rival some of the best high-end commercial software tools. The recent improvements reflect the vibrance of the GIMP project and demonstrate some of the benefits of enlisting professional usability experts to contribute to open source application design.

65 Reader Comments

these improvements are great. I was considering switchign to paint .net (I don't know how to use gimps more advanced features). But after the 2.6 improvements I find gimp much easier to use and this should take it to another level. Its good to know that the people working on gimp can take action on user feedback.

Thanks for a real preview of 2.8. The multi-window interface isn't as big a problem for me now that I've used it a bit (and since karmic the toolbars finally skip the task bar and are visible iff the main window is). But the one-window interface might be more comfortable anyway. Inline editing of text, finally! Not sold on the image tab bar, I'd prefer text tabs with a thumbnail tooltip.

Originally posted by flunk:Wow, the gimp is finally on par with photoshop 15 years ago. Seriously, the gimp would never be used if it wasn't free and even then it's not really used professionally.

I have to agree that it's about time that the GIMP's UI was redone.

The current UI is absolutely horrible. Trying to use the GIMP for 30 seconds or 30 minutes of work was always a royal pain in the ass due to this, doubly so if you had two or more images opened in it!

The new single window mode looks like a MASSIVE improvement! Hopefully the UI will work as well in practice as it looks like it does in the screen shots, but this seems like an improvement that'd be hard to screw up.

Originally posted by Barfly:I find it amusing that they have an Ubuntu picture on it since Ubuntu 10.04 is dropping the GIMP.

Why do people get so hung up on this?

Ubuntu isn't "dropping" the GiMP; GiMP is still in the repositories where it's always been - and not relegated to Universe, either; it's still in the main Ubuntu repos. It's just not bundled into the default loadout.

Originally posted by flunk:Wow, the gimp is finally on par with photoshop 15 years ago. Seriously, the gimp would never be used if it wasn't free and even then it's not really used professionally.

I don't think many people claim the GIMP to be a great program relative to commercial offerings. For a free image editor, it certainly has its problems, but it works well enough. If you are a professional, you likely aren't paying the cost for Photoshop, your employer is. If you choose to use GIMP anyway, then do so, and accept it's limitations. Or, you could even provide feedback as a pro user to the developers.

Sure it's not a professional tool, for many reasons. Who cares, I'm not a pro, but I still can use more complex tools than Picasa and Photoshop Elements. Saying that it's on par with PS 15 years ago on account of it having a single window mode is ridiculous. The current interface is just different from PS, which most people have used before Gimp, many of them without paying for it. It works fine once you unlearn Photoshop, and learn what things are named in the GIMP and where they are, which obviously takes a while. I might end up using the single window mode, but even if I don't I'm glad they are finally building it because this issue tends to dominate every single Gimp discussions, to the detriment of other possible topics.

And Ubuntu 10.04 is not "dropping" the GIMP. It's removing it from the default install to make room on the cramped CD, which is a totally different thing. I've installed a huge amount of software that's not part of the default install, the whole distinction between on-disk and not-on-disk is irrelevant to everyone except people who are a both stuck with no internet or dial-up. For those people, I'm sure there will be a Ubuntu remix that includes the GIMP on-disk, or alternatively it's not exactly rocket science to back the relevant .debs on a USB stick or another medium. I guess the only real issue is that this does (somewhat significantly) reduce the GIMPs visibility to novice Linux users; although I'm not sure how big an issue that is, most novice users are better served by a simpler tool, and once they get beyond my mom's level of computer literacy it's trivial to install the GIMP from the repos.

In order to eliminate the need for separate content windows, the single-window mode has a tabbed multidocument interface. A set of tabs is displayed along the top edge of the window with a thumbnail of each image that you have opened in the program. You can click an individual tab to interact with the associated image. The thumbnails in the tabs are updated in real time as you edit the images.

Yes thank you! It's awesome news that GIMP is doing a facelift. One of the major annoyances that prevented me from using the program.

I never got why people are so hung up on the multi-windows interface. I don't like it that much but I also don't think its much of a real problem. There are other interface issues I have bigger issues with.

The other improvements to the functionality are what's interesting to me. The new text tool sounds like a significant improvement. High bit depths are something photographers have been grumbling about for a while.

and "The GIMP is an impressive application that illuminates the potential of the of the open source software community to build free and open applications that nearly rival some of the best high-end commercial software tools."

Potential of open source to nearly rival commercial? How about Apache? Android?

In order to eliminate the need for separate content windows, the single-window mode has a tabbed multidocument interface. A set of tabs is displayed along the top edge of the window with a thumbnail of each image that you have opened in the program. You can click an individual tab to interact with the associated image. The thumbnails in the tabs are updated in real time as you edit the images.

Yes thank you! It's awesome news that GIMP is doing a facelift. One of the major annoyances that prevented me from using the program.

It's easy and fun to make light of open source apps, but Gimp's great for a little image tinkering here and there and I applaud all the efforts made to improve it. They've done a good job over the years, and I'd rather turn to Gimp than shell out the money for Photoshop for personal use.

It's no Photoshop, of course, but in at least partially attempting to compete with Photoshop, the Gimp project's shooting for the stars, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem with GIMP is that its user interface is bad because The Powers That Be (aka the "designers") have a hard-on for a bad design philosophy - multiple floating windows. What this article fails to appreciate is that after extensive usability studies and a recommendation for consolidating these floating windows, "the designers" are still not going to move away from using them as the default. This project could be 10x or greater more popular than it currently is. It's really too bad.

Originally posted by _alterego:The problem with GIMP is that its user interface is bad because The Powers That Be (aka the "designers") have a hard-on for a bad design philosophy - multiple floating windows. What this article fails to appreciate is that after extensive usability studies and a recommendation for consolidating these floating windows, "the designers" are still not going to move away from using them as the default. This project could be 10x or greater more popular than it currently is. It's really too bad.

Huh.

I just love this sort of slashdot group-think style design philosophy. So widely accepted, yet so utterly wrong.

Maybe, just maybe, that things are just a bit more subtle then you take them for.

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Single window mode are for people using shitty Window managers (say... Microsoft Windows or KDE4's or whatever) or for people using decent ones (Like Metacity or OpenBox) that don't know how to take advantage of them.

It's a nice option to have for the less advanced users. It's bad for a application designer to assume that people are going to put the effort and time into understanding their system. Most people just want to use the software as quickly with as little thought or effort as possible, which is understandable.

Originally posted by drag:Single window mode are for people using shitty Window managers (say... Microsoft Windows or KDE4's or whatever) or for people using decent ones (Like Metacity or OpenBox) that don't know how to take advantage of them.

I find it puzzling that you would characterize KWin as shitty and Metacity as decent. In my experience, it's entirely the other way around. :P

Back before Adobe bought Macromedia I recall a series of UI patent cases between the two. One of the outcomes of that was that the Macromedia software adopted a new interface much like this single window mode, which is now common in most of the CS apps. Its a nice way of working I find, as it avoids annoying overlaps and can be quickly configured. I'm just curious though if the GIMP is treading on litigious ground?

Hey cool that looks great. I do not need a Photoshop equivalent I just need the best free image editor. And yes the floating windows were annoying. Most OSX applications are contained in one window as well, from Safari, over iTunes to iPhoto.

Originally posted by drag:Single window mode are for people using shitty Window managers (say... Microsoft Windows or KDE4's or whatever) or for people using decent ones (Like Metacity or OpenBox) that don't know how to take advantage of them.

And by "most osx applications" you mean except graphics apps, right?Photoshop on mac has multiple windows, as do pixelmator, acorn, and the macpaint clones. Only pixel studio doesn't, and it looks like a windows refugee on every platform.This is also the case with illustrator and every other vector editor.

As I said I have only used OSX for a while but I am not sure if graphic apps are the reason everybody thinks that OSX has a great UI. On the other hand its window management is definitely better than Windows so it may make multiple windows more sensible. Still don't like it.

My frustrations at trying to use GIMP have left me uninstalling this application despite its potential to do good things. The UI was indeed too difficult to master, let alone trying to "undo" Adobe product tasks.

Even with this article, I see no benefit in this interface as explained. It seems to me, the more options one opens, the less real estate one has to work with. I may be mistaken here, but a fixed sidebar is already wasting real estate.

I'm a complete fan of the way CS3/4 was redesigned. Options are hidden until they're needed or users can float/dock independent menus. I'm also very happy we can also combine elements into another container or even make our own.

I'll no doubt try 2.8, but I've a feeling CS4 has pampered me too much to give true acceptance to the product. It's extremely difficult to "undo" Adobe products, especially since many make perfect sense.